The DFG-Research Unit Kili-SES aims at understanding major components of the feedback loop between nature and people, including biodiversity, nature’s contributions to people (NCP), human well-being, governance and indirect and direct anthropogenic drivers. It applies a fully integrated, interdisciplinary approach to understand major components of the social-ecological system on the Southern slopes of Mt. Kilimanjaro in Tanzania under land-use, climate and governance change. Among others, it investigates 1) the influence of a broad range of biodiversity components on the supply of regulating, material and non-material NCP, 2) the supply of NCP in relation to the demand for them by major stakeholder groups, the values they attach to them and their impact on different constituents of human well-being, and 3) the direct effect of land-management and conservation measures on biodiversity. The Research Unit builds unique data and knowledge obtained during a previous DFG-Research Unit (FOR 1246) on ‘Kilimanjaro ecosystems under global change: Linking biodiversity, biotic interactions and biogeochemical ecosystem processes’ (2010-2018).
The Section is responsible for Subproject 5 on ‘Governance and institutions as drivers of NCP supply and management’. Looking at changes over the last 25 years, the relations between land-use types, related NCP, and stakeholders will be investigated. Further, the subproject will address the questions of what, how and why institutions and governance arrangements affected the formation and change of certain land-use types, and how these arrangements are interlinked across spatial and jurisdictional scales. Finally, the distribution of power among actors and its effects on land-use as well as the performance of governance of issues, like water, biophysically interconnecting land use will be explored. Empirically, the research includes a broad mix of qualitative and quantitative research methods such as in-depth document analysis, key informant interviews, focus group discussions, transect walks, and Social-(Ecological) Network Analysis.
Subproject 5 is led by the Section in collaboration with the Senckenberg Biodiversity and Climate Research Centre (SBiK-F), the Leuphana University Lüneburg, the University of Kiel, and the University of Dar es Salaam as Tanzanian counterpart.
